Writing by an aging farm boy in the city

Helping Part 2

There’s a thing called a prompt in the Blogging course I’m taking. This prompt created a jumping-off point for the next piece about the Syrian Kurd refugee we’re trying to help.

He is a young single man, brother to the wife mentioned in the previous post. He left Syria by foot in 2013, because he had completed a two-year degree and was no longer exempt from military conscription. He is Kurdish, and as such is in a double bind: if he returns to Syria and the government forces stop him, he can be forced to fight for Assad against his own Kurdish people and against other rebel groups. If he returns to Syria and goes to a Kurdish area, either of the Kurdish groups fighting against Assad and the other rebels could force him to fight.

He has a degree which he took in English and speaks English well. In his current situation in Turkey he cannot legally work and he cannot travel freely because of the many refugees travelling through Turkey to the EU.

Until three days ago he worked in a lamp shop for half wages, acting as an interpreter for customers. His shop was 1 km away from the suicide bomb blast that killed 10 people in Istanbul. With no customers, his job is gone.

We are waiting, as is he and his family here in Canada, for paperwork to come through from the Syrian embassy in Istanbul that will allow us to complete the sponsorship application and have it submitted to the Canadian and Turkish governments. While he is waiting, there is violence all around him. Syrian refugees are being blamed for the latest blast and the police have rounded up suspects. There is nothing that we, or he, can do to speed up the process.

The prompt for this post was about belief. Belief is:

An acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof: Oxford English Dictionary

In an e-mail just yesterday, this young man said he still believes and is still strong in his hope that everything will be okay and that he will be allowed to come to Canada. I call that belief, and strong belief. We just hope his belief will be proven true.

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One thought on “Helping Part 2”

Such situations are sometimes desperate. But it takes one who is mean to face this kind of challenge with success. In another situation you face your world believing anything can happen. Everything involves risk taking. Even in belief there is risk in it. But one with a strong mind always overcome this kind of situation. But I will lastly say that every belief has a root from God.